The Israeli government has radically changed tack on Syria, reversing a policy and military strategy that were long geared to opposing Syrian President Bashar Assad, debkafile reports exclusively. This reversal was prompted by the increasing preponderance of radical Islamists among the Syrian rebels fighting Assad’s army in the Quneitra area. It calls for a delicate balancing act. While loath to see Assad winning the Syrian war, Israel has no desire to have Al Qaeda’s Syrian branch, Al Nusra, sitting just across the Golan border in control of Quneitra.

The Syrian army’s 90th Brigade’s loss of the forward Tel Al-Ahmar Golan position to rebel forces including al Qaeda’s Nusra Front was Bashar Assad’s most humiliating military setback in the past year. Situated on the Israeli border, that position commands the Golan town of Quneitra opposite the Israeli army. Determined to recover it, Assad has mustered a Syrian-Hizballah-Iraqi Shiite expeditionary force. Israel will have to decide how to deal with violations of the Golan demilitarized zone if the Syrian army uses heavy armor and mounts air strikes against the rebels.

A tip-off by Western intelligence agencies in Syria led to the Lebanese arrest of Majid al-Majid, the Saudi leader of the al Qaeda-linked Abdullah Azzam Brigades. This group has been held responsible for bomb attacks on the Iranian embassy in Beirut and Hizballah strongholds, as well as rocket attacks on northern Israel. debkafile: Al Majid was arrested in Beirut on Dec. 30, on returning from Syria where he signed a cooperation pact providing the Nusra Front with logistical facilities at Abdullah Azzam stronghold in S. Lebanon near the Israeli border.

Jabhat al-Nusra operated in Syria for years as a clandestine movement, the brainchild of the notorious Jordanian master terrorist Musab Abu-Zarqawi of Iraq who used Syria as his logistical hub. Al-Nusra is now revealed It now emerges as a part of al Qaeda of Iraq - The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.

Islamist fighters enlisted from many countries to fight with the Syrian rebels are beginning to return home. With their combat experience and training, they may serve al Qaeda as ticking bombs in Western cities.

Contrary to reports of Hizballah attacks on Syrian villages in the Homs region, a thousand Hizballah militiamen have moved in to defend those Shiite, pro-Assad villages against rebel attack. debkafile reveals: Syrian rebel Islamists are receiving anti-tank missiles from Kosovo and Bosnia. They give the rebels an edge in battle with Syrian troops, but also arm Jabhat al-Nusra for a push into Lebanon to strike Hizballah in its Beqaa Valley strongholds. The Syrian conflict now confronts the Sunni Jabhat al-Nusra head-on with the Shiite Hizballah.